U.S. President Donald Trump is stoking fear over a new migrant caravan from Central America, claiming to have "alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy [sic]." Amid this environment, we are re-posting a piece from 2009 about the need for comprehensive labor legislation to protect migrants and immigrants, who are some of the most exploited workers in the United States.

What if lawmakers had the guts to create comprehensive labor legislation for immigrants, enshrining their rights in accordance with international law? What if our legal system recognized immigrants’ freedom of movement, shielded families from unnecessary separation, and allowed real recourse against exploitative employers?

Recognizing that border-crossing is an economic right and necessity, the Convention’s provisions include freedom from discrimination in the workplace and public services, equal protection before the law, and protection from “arbitrary expulsion,” violence and intimidation by groups or individuals.

Yet in another stunning display of American exceptionalism, the United States has not joined the dozens of other countries that have ratified these common-sense principles. Washington prefers to relegate immigration issues to the domestic policy arena, which allows it to capitalize freely on a two-tier labor force.

Chandra Bhatnagar of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program noted last December (in a rather lonely celebration of International Migrants Day) that there are three distinctly vulnerable subsets of migrants in America: Guestworkers, who have employment-based visas, are at risk of being chained to exploitative employers without legal recourse. And undocumented workers, following a controversial Supreme Court ruling in 2002, have lost safeguards in the areas of accessible remedies when injured or killed on the job, overtime pay, workers’ compensation” and other protections. Domestic and agricultural workers have been shut out of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and other labor laws, deprived of a minimum wage floor, workplace safety protections, and the right to unionize.

In a recent paper on the labor migration and international law, Villanova University law professor Beth Lyon writes that a major obstacle to ratification of the Convention examined the government’s reluctance to open its immigration policy to scrutiny under international law:

It appears that the Migrant Worker Convention has received virtually no domestic attention in the United States from either civil society, domestic or international government, likely because it is assumed that any attempt to define immigrants as rights holders is a political non-starter.

But Lyon argues that ratification of the Convention could “help to break through the current domestic political stalemate and build-up of undocumented immigrants” and

advance agendas important to both the right and the left, including increased national security through enhanced standing with the global south and an improved humanitarian situation for one of America’s most vulnerable groups.

Many immigrants’ rights advocates are bypassing the government to leverage international law on their own. The ACLU, for instance, recently invoked United Nations policies in advocating for hundreds of Indian guest workers imported to as cheap forced labor in the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort. The organization complemented its litigation in federal court with an appeal to the U.N. Spe­cial Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

U.S.-based activists have worked with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate detention facilities in Texas and Arizona, as well as law enforcement policies toward undocumented immigrants.

Last month, the Commission’s Rapporteurship on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families reported, “many men, women and children detained in those facilities are held in unacceptable conditions.” The delegation also criticized reliance on local police in anti-immigrant crackdowns, warning that “the federal government might be unable to hold local law enforcement properly accountable for enforcing immigration laws with respect for basic human rights.”

The Florida-based Coalition of Imokalee Workers has framed the plight of exploited migrant farmworkers as a modern-day international slave trade. Targeting food-industry behemoths like Taco Bell and McDonald’s, the group has combined grassroots labor organizing with massive public education campaigns to pressure employers to improve wages and working conditions.

Advocates for domestic workers in New York City link the struggles of home-based laborers, the vast majority of them immigrant women of color, to global economic dynamics and the country’s legacy of racial oppression. To offset the lack of federal protections, Domestic Workers United is pushing for stronger state-level regulations, like livable wage standards, protection from trafficking, and integration into New York’s human rights laws.

Yet the engines of global capital are greased by the flow of labor across borders. A byproduct of economic “integration” has been economic apartheid in immigrant communities. While the political establishment works to advance the rights of corporations to trade freely, the rights of migrants to basic human dignity are brushed off the agenda.

Michelle Chen is a contributing writer at In These Times and The Nation, a contributing editor at Dissent and a co-producer of the "Belabored" podcast. She studies history at the CUNY Graduate Center. She tweets at @meeshellchen.

my replies to you are framed so as to help you learn what the law IS...and it is not as I would have it.

you seem like a good soul to me and what I would say is that you have to know what the law actually is. once you do, you can decide if you willing to go along or break it.

I studied the law with that in mind.

dope-smoking hippies as I was go to law school knowing that they risk losing the license if they want to continue doing as they please.

on three occasions, I've helped to shelter illegals in my house and twice help them to get those papers ASAP.one now practices medicine and another is a critical care nurse.

the third went back to Haiti after giving birth.

defying the law is possibly costly and I recommend actively engaging in trying to change some of the more odious ones and keeping defiance to a minimum.I also recommend that you be certain of what the law is before you set out to take action

take care

Posted by fuster on 2018-10-30 23:25:41

Okay, so your only concern is that laws are followed? So if we change the laws back to the way they were when immigration was easy and legal, the problem is solved? Undocumented Immigrants would get that super important document and be legal, and we wouldn't have to spend tens of billions per year on a stupid plan to get rid of people?

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-30 11:44:13

the right to due process is what the 14th guarantees for non-citizens and that is quite different from the rights of citizens.

there is nothing unjust about subjecting non-citizens who break our law by jumping the border subject to arrest, detention and removal in accordance with federal law.

read it again

we don't have to like it, but the law is clear and nothing in the 14th makes carrying out the law contrary to the 14th.

as long as they are given a hearing and a right to be heard, they have been afforded due process

Posted by fuster on 2018-10-30 10:59:49

Regardless of origin, the 14th Amendment shows the intent to protect the rights of all people within our borders. Do you believe that undocumented immigrants are not people?!

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-30 01:14:00

if you understood that the 14th Am came at the end of slavery, you would understand the context and the need to make explicit the rights of those American persons formerly denied citizenship rights and full legal protection.

this was certainly NOT about immigration, but about cementing the rights of the former slaves

Posted by fuster on 2018-10-29 16:14:36

Do you know the 14th Amendment? Read section one. Notice how it bends over backwards to define what a citizen is, and tells us about the rights of citizens. But then it ends by saying there is equal protection for all "persons". Now, ask yourself.... WHY did they use the word persons at the end and not the word citizens?

It's very clear, they wanted to re-emphasize the anti-nationalist nature of the Declaration of Independence which declared rights of all people, not just citizens. But they also balanced the interests of citizenship status.

I'm not stupid, I know there were competing interests, biases, and varied opinions at our founding. But I see a common theme of anti-nationalism, and certainly a strong group of founders who wished for the United States to serve as a refuge for all people of the world. Within these borders any person would have their rights protected.

There is also a noticeable ABSENCE of restrictions on immigration or harsh laws and procedures for obtaining citizenship. Most of which did not come into place until post-1900. Those immigration laws which came later were massively racist, and that hasn't changed much. The racists have just come up with better lies to convince average citizens it's not racist.

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-29 02:16:33

when you know as much about the Constitution as I learned, you'll be able to point to some provision in it to support your claims about it.

until then, ot's yourself who is a bit short on book larnin'.

again, it's impossible for you to justify your claims of Constitutional authority

or your claims about it being entirely race-based in the limitation of immigration.

however, beneath all of this, I have some sympathy and admiration for your opinions on the subject.

Posted by fuster on 2018-10-29 00:07:50

Keep learning fuster, you'll figure it out eventually. As I stated economics and security are NOT reasons for closed borders. It is NOT a reason that 22 million people here undocumented shouldn't be legal today. We have the data, they are a positive to our economy in every way and could have even MORE positive impact on the economy if they were legal and had full opportunity and rights as everyone else. They are statistically LESS criminal than US citizens, so we know it's not security.

Economics and Security are NOT reasons to close borders are deport undocumented immigrants. It's the opposite, it's expensive, it's a negative impact on the economy, and it makes us less safe. The ONLY reason left is racism. Why should we spend money, lose economic power, and become less safe for racism?

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-28 21:27:12

I've studied that Constitution a fair amount and don't remember a single instance where there is announced a right to cross the borders in contravention to the statutory law of either the federal or state governments.

to deny them entry is not to deny them any human right...and I doubt if you can make any coherent argument to the contrary.

and it's utterly preposterous to claim that " The only reason to stop immigration is racism".

I might agree bigotry has played a large part in keeping the southern border watched, but MANY other factors play into the policy.... economic and security factors are merely two.

nor should we ignore that MILLIONS of Central Americans have already crashed the border and there's not any good reason to tolerate it.

unlimited immigration is not our policy, nor should it be nor is it unjust to insist that we retain and enforce the right to choose those that we allow residency.

some people who are not racist contend that there are environmental factors that mean that we should limit the number of people in the Southwest and that there may not be enough water to support many more...or even the present population

Posted by fuster on 2018-10-28 21:17:31

In other words, I call the law unjust because I know what I'm talking about and have figured this out.

Because you don't understand the issue doesn't mean it's just, it means you're wrong and should educate yourself.

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-28 17:51:00

Here's why I say that that is UNJUST. The United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution is unique in that it declares rights for all people. (true, at the time it was written it said "men" and did not apply to African people. We've learned, and it's understood to mean all people now). This theme continues throughout the Constitution where it specifically distinguishes between people in general, and citizens.

The United States was formed to recognize the rights of all people, and protect those rights within our borders. It doesn't say, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all CITIZENS are created equal" It says all people are created equal and deserving of equal rights.

So, knowing we consider all people equal. The only reason we would not want them into our country would be if they would cause the country harm in some undue way.

But we know that immigrants, in fact, add value. They are not criminals and rapists as the racists like to say. They are not a drain on the economy as the racists say, people are the most valuable thing IN our economy.

The only reason to stop immigration is racism, and racism is unjust.

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-28 17:49:23

that you or I don't consider the laws just doesn't mean that the laws are unjust, dkt. ...and we have to remember that.

our opinions are not infallible.

nor are all laws that are not perfect actually unjust. there's a hell of a lot of middle ground between laws that are perfectly just and good and laws that are ill-intended and meant to cause harm.

laws that don't allow citizens to leave the country are unjust.laws that insist that the nation has the right to admit to residency and citizenship only those chosen by the government are not unjust....they may be short-sighted and they may not work out always for the best, but they are, on their face, reasonable

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Posted by Alline D. Ferrer on 2018-10-28 04:25:50

I don't consider our laws just. It's not just to enforce unjust laws. My family came here in the mid to late 1800's (I have records of all 4 of my grandparent's families). They spoke a funny language, had an odd religious, and wore funny clothes. They didn't have to wait for years and spend thousands of dollars. There was no baiting to tactic to lure them here with the promise of work and keep them as second-class illegals for decades.

Furthermore, I don't see how spending tens of billions on radical ICE enforcement, deportation, and detention, THE WALL, etc... a policy which could continue for the next 100 years and still would not remove all 22 million people is good for me or you.

What's good for working people is to demand rights for all workers within our borders. A legal status, rights to organize, etc... I would suggest a higher employment tax on people who have not attained citizenship. This tax would help cut the demand for undocumented labor, give citizens an advantage, and fund citizenship and ESL classes which should be offered for undocumented people who wish to pursue citizenship. The tax would also give them incentive to become citizens in a timely manner.

Doing it this way raises wages, unifies people within our borders, generates revenue, etc... Doing it Trump's way creates a scapegoat (the illegals) which the right can con their supporters into blaming for low pay, crime, drugs, or anything else, is insanely expensive (it costs upwards of $700/day to keep someone in detention and that's going into pockets of corporations owned and/or friendly to the Republican Party!), won't work, and will have even more unintended consequences the longer it goes on.

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-26 20:51:21

I certainly agree that our immigration laws are not to my liking, but

there is nothing inherently unjust in demanding that people don't sneak across the border and nothing unjust it telling them that we'll arrest them and kick them out if they do so nor anything unjust in doing exactly that.

I've helped shelter illegals three different times, but there really is nothing unjust in demanding that people who wish to live or visit or work here, follow our laws and ASK PERMISSION, rather than defy our laws.

Posted by fuster on 2018-10-26 20:33:15

I made a mistake. I was thinking of the 14th Amendment, of which section one states -

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Perhaps there is differing points of view, but the way I read this they are bending over backwards to define the difference between "person" and "citizen". It tells us that "citizens" have additional privileges and immunities that the States cannot abridge. BUT, it also says the States cannot deprive any "person" of life, liberty, or property without due process, and that no "person" within our borders can be denied equal protection of the laws.

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-26 17:20:44

I disagree, it's been our policy to allow and exploit undocumented immigration for decades. Our 9th Amendment protects the rights of all people, not just citizens. You are correct that we need to change the unjust laws, but incorrect to enforce unjust laws. They should have passed the McCain/Kennedy Immigration Bill, but far-right lunatics like Ted Cruz blocked it.

Posted by dkt on 2018-10-26 16:45:16

we have no need to protect undocumented immigrants, aside from abusive conditions in regard to the detention of their children, there is no reason not to jail them unless and until they can prove that they deserve asylum...and most do not.our immigration policies may not match our preferences, but they remain on the books as law....until they are changed

Posted by fuster on 2018-10-26 08:21:42

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